Hong
Kong is a sub-tropical place, so my ten-year-old daughter has never seen
snow. To cure that (with a vengeance), I took my whole family to the Arctic
Circle in Trømsø,
Norway for the Chinese New Year Holiday.

Norway is a beautiful country with friendly people. We
visited a very nice village called 'Hell' (frozen over) and in Trømsø
there are some excellent museums that offer a view of the pre-history and modern
life of the European Arctic peoples - particularly the Sapmi (Saami - related to
the Lapps).

The Sapmi followed reindeer
herds on their migration paths, and in the North-west of Mongolia, in the Altai
mountains, the Tsaatang people have many cultural parallels to the Sapmi,
including riding reindeer and making birch bark sleds drawn by reindeer for
carrying infants.

The Sapmi can be regarded
as an Asian archery culture, given the wide range of their migrations. They used
recurve bows made with wood and sinew, and such bows can be seen in rock
carvings such as those found at Alta, on the Northern coast of Norway.

Rock carving from Alta, Norway.
But how old are they? Thousands of years,
or dating from Christian suppression of
Sapmi traditional beliefs
in the 17th - 18th Centuries?

Explorers in the 18th Century still observed these
slightly recurved bows among the Sapmi.

Sapmi (Lapp) man (with bow over his shoulder)
on the frontispiece of an 18thy Century book.
(Trømsø University
Museum)

Displays in the Trømsø
University also include a partial Sapmi bow and crossbow. Unfortunately, the bow
was in too poor condition (only the wooden core remained) to allow for a meaning
photograph.

Sapmi Crossbow, 19th Century.
(Trømsø University
Museum)

You will recall that some time ago, I described a
bone insert from a bow dating back to the Khitan culture, which derived from the
Huns and dominated north China in the 10 - 11th Centuries.

Recently, I obtained two more fragments of bows.
I have to make it clear that I have no proof that these items are parts of bows.
They were not found with other recognizable parts of bows.

This is the item I showed earlier. It appears to me to be a bow-tip
insert.

The new items are made of bone (not horn) and
appear to be grip-reinforcements. Their general age and the condition of the
bone suggests that they are contemporaneous with the insert described above.
Although I have two, they do not seem to be a pair as they vary slightly in size
and state of preservation. Apart from the shape, which would plausibly indicate
that they formed a reinforcement to the grip and the lower, non-working
parts of the limb, the items are clearly scored on the inner surface in exactly
the same way that I have seen modern horn bowyers use to ensure maximum adhesion
between horn and wood. Let the pictures below speak for themselves.

Front and rear views of the bone grip reinforcement.
(Both are views of the same item.)

Oblique view of the inside showing scoring.

The end of the grip reinforcement where it would have abutted the horn.

Lateral view of the reinforcement. Note the even depth.

Of course, I can accept that this item might have
had another use. But the scoring seems to me to be a give-away. What other usage
would have required such precautions to ensure a firm glue bond?

I look forward to hearing Member's comments.
Please could you open correspondence on AtarnNet
under 'hardware' if you want to have a discussion?

In May, ATARN and the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal
Defense will undertake an expedition to Qinghai and Xinjiang, in Western China (Mongolo-Tibetan
and Muslim Uighur cultures respectively), to collect data on traditional archery
and bow-making in the two regions. This promises to offer an excellent
opportunity to expand our knowledge and out-reach to two of the archery cultures
of China. We also hope to examine the Niya bow first-hand and prepare a
technical report. I hope to be able to report in June this year.

With the assistance of Volker Tank in Germany,
ATARN has commissioned a new English translation of the Sanskrit classic on
archery, the Dhanurveda from Sanskrit scholar Dr. B Chakravarti. I will up-load
it this month.